Besieged in
Maupertuis by Noble, Renard sends a flattering love letter to each of
his old flames, the lioness, the wolf, and the leopardess. The three
ladies are delighted with the proposals of the charming Maitre Renard.
They draw lots to see which shall possess forever the affections of the
irresistible Lothario; the lot falls to Dame Hersent, and the three
ladies write a joint letter to inform Renard of their choice, a choice
not very pleasing to Renard, who is, moreover, provoked because they
have exchanged confidences. His revenge is at once planned. Going to
court dressed as a charlatan, he gives to Noble a precious talisman by
means of which, he says, any deceived husband can learn of his wife's
infidelities; and Noble, Isengrin (the wolf), and the leopard are eager
to test the virtues of the talisman. The ensuing dreadful revelations
may be imagined. The guilty wives, well beaten by their wrathful
husbands, flee from the court and are kindly received by crafty Renard,
who forthwith establishes a harem. It is a pleasantly humorous story,
and the conditions of real life are distinctly reflected, while the
satiric intent is not enough to distort the reflection.

In the _Fabliaux_, however, woman is even more clearly portrayed as she
really was, or at least as she seemed to the men. A large part of Old
French literature, as one critic has remarked, is devoted to exposing
and discussing, the misfortunes of marriage; and in these relations the
deceived husband is, we might say, clown paramount. The authors of the
_Fabliaux_--which were written to amuse the bourgeois as well as the
knight--"invented or discovered anew talismans that revealed their
misfortunes (as husbands): the enchanted mantle which grows either
longer or shorter suddenly when put on by an unfaithful wife, the cup
from which none but happy husbands can drink.... Our tellers of tales
invented a whole cycle of feminine tricks and ruses.... The women of the
Fabliaux shrink from no stratagem: they can persuade their husbands, one
that he is covered by an invisible cloak, another that he is a monk, or
a third that he is dead." Contending with them or seeking to outwit them
is of no avail, says the author of these tales, for _mout se femme de
renardise_,--many a foxy trick does woman know,--and _fols est qui femme
espie et guette,_--he is a fool who spies upon a woman.

The story of one of these triumphs of beauty over wisdom will illustrate
the best type